When renovating your home, chances are that you will be organising deliveries of goods to your property. When it comes to organising fragile goods across the city or the country whether by transport company suchor by mail, it’s important to ensure they are packed in a way that will adequately protect them and prevent damage. Freight gets thrown around as carriers struggle to load and unload their trucks. Accidents can easily happen; goods can get dropped or sometimes they are kicked aside.

Make sure the goods are wrapped well and securely. A well wrapped parcel can come apart if it is not also secure. So the actual object must be wrapped in a way that protects all the edges and any sharp points from protruding through the outer packaging.

Then it needs to be placed into a strong box that contains it and is easy to pick up and to stack. The box itself should be strong enough to give protection to the goods inside it.

There should be packaging inside the box to prevent the object moving around and damaging itself. This packaging should completely fill up all the small spaces within the box that are not taken up by the item.

Extra protection should be placed over protruding or sharp points such as the corners of a table and the ends of its legs.

Parts of the item should be taped down to prevent movement. This includes the drawers of a cabinet – even if it’s a small jewellery box.

Some items can be pulled to pieces and each piece wrapped separately before placing within the box. For example, a glass topped table with chrome legs, can usually have the legs removed and it should certainly have the glass removed and wrapped separately.

Tape the wrapping in place so it can’t unwrap as you pack it into the box.

If the item is very delicate, it may need to be packed into two boxes, the outer one being larger, and the space between the two should be filled with some kind of packaging material to stop movement and protect the smaller box.

Always place a ‘Fragile’ label on the box and if appropriate, a “This Side Up” label should also be applied.

It goes without saying that the destination label should be clear and concise and have no chance of coming off the box, otherwise your treasure could be left sitting in a lost property container and end up being sold off.

Finally, arrange for your treasured item to be delivered to a secure location if the recipient is likely to be out when it arrives. There is no point taking care with the wrapping only to have it stolen before the person to whom it is addressed gets home.